“You okay, mate?” Gregg asked, stepping forward to offer me a hand that I waved away.
“I’m in good humour, my friend,” I said, glancing at the piled heads. “Are we ready to leave? We still have quite a way to go.”
“We stand ready,” Emma said, raising clenched fist to her breast while Abigail just smiled sourly.
“What about these women?” the medical student asked.
“What about them?”
“We can’t just leave them here!”
“Why not?”
“There’s a dozen raiders who will be back any minute! When they see that vile message you’ve left them, they’re gonna go nuts.”
True. Which was kind of the point. I wanted them angry and upset as they chased around the countryside looking for us.
“We can’t just leave them, mate. Lily-“
“I don’t need a lecture,” I snapped, cutting him off. I knew all too well what she would want. “What would you have me do?”
“Protect them, like you promised,” Emma said, and I smiled at the touch of defiance in her voice.
I looked over the group of women, recognising the fear and anger on their faces. A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as an idea occurred. It would piss people off, and it would likely annoy Lily if she found out, but still, it would amuse me no end.
“Who are you?” I asked that group of women, raising my voice to be heard clearly. When no response came, I answered for them. “You have been beaten and abused; you have had everything taken from you as you were treated as less than human.”
Beside me, Emma stood up a little straighter, eyes shining, as Gregg put his face in his hands and groaned.
“You are the lost and the forgotten,” I said. “But you can be more. If you are willing.”
“Willing to do what?” the younger woman, asked, raising her chin defiantly.
“To fight, to kill.” I said. “You could be the knife in the darkness, as you make them fear you, instead of living in fear yourselves.”
“We’re not fighters!” she snapped back, and I smiled, watching her, and weighing the possibilities.
“You could be.”
Note from the Author
Another book done, and I hope you enjoyed it. When I began this book, it was with the expectation that Ryan would finally make it home, but it seems that things diverged a little. That’s what I get for letting him take the lead in the story.
Lily is faced with not only the struggle within herself to move forward with her life, but the struggle to help the survivors that are being terrorized by Sebastian. She has too few soldiers to take him on, and her concern has to be the parasites that are still growing as she doesn’t know how to kill them, and her hope of finding that out died beneath the blades of Sebastian’s followers.
Ryan is being drawn home, whether he likes it or not. He’s upset the leader of a large band of raiders and they will be coming for him. To survive, he will need to take a bunch of abused survivors and turn them into a fighting force that will bring order to the chaos.
However, it turns out, the next book will be interesting as the war for the future of the human race begins in earnest.
I hope you will continue reading to find out what comes next.
Richard.
Killing The Dead | Book 21 | The Journey Home Page 19